Feb 2008 Newsletter

State of West Virginia Agrees: ENTs and Their Patients Should Have Easy Access to Ultra Low-Dose CT Scans

Governor Joe Manchin, working alongside the West Virginia Health Care Authority, formalized the State’s commitment to better patient care in West Virginia in January. The result: patients win. Ear, Nose and Throat (ENTs) physicians and surgeons in the State of West Virginia will once again have access to MiniCAT™, a compact, specialty CT scanner with built-in low-dose radiation protocols for imaging the sinuses, temporal bones and skull base: an ENT designed CT scanner.

The State showed its commitment when it agreed to exempt low-cost, low-dose radiation specialty CT scanners from the State’s Certificate of Need (CON) regulation process, following the trend in 47 other states. The CON process can be onerous and the scan threshold unattainable on a small practice or community hospital. CON regulations were created at a time when low-cost “specialty CT” scanners did not exist. CON is intended to regulate the purchase of high-cost diagnostic equipment and costly improvements or expansions to health and medical facilities. But with the low power output and low-cost of specialty CT scanners, it didn’t make sense to regulate their purchase any longer. This exemption allows West Virginia ENTs to have access to advanced point-of-service diagnostic technology and to compete technologically with colleagues on a national basis. Michigan, Virginia and Connecticut ENTs must continue to fight CON regulation barriers.

Advancing point-of-service CT improves patient care and patient compliance. Mountain State ENT Facial Plastic Surgery, Inc. (Mountain State) was one of the first clinics in West Virginia to have MiniCAT™. Clinical Coordinator, Angie Green, saw patient compliance and satisfaction improve as a result. “Before [MiniCAT™], patient compliance was horrible. Probably 50% of our patients missed their CT exams, requiring one of the staff to try and reschedule. It’s particularly difficult for the elderly to comply. With [in-office] sinus CT scans, compliance has pretty much been 100%.”

From a surgical standpoint, MiniCAT™ user Dr. James Paine of Mountain State explains, “the Xoran system has really helped to streamline the image-guided surgery process. We import the images directly from our CT scanner into our navigation system. Because the scanner is right here, we have more control over the imaging protocols – that gives us image consistency from patient to patient.”

MiniCAT™, developed by Xoran Technologies, Inc., brings imaging to the patient, directly where the patient is being treated. With MiniCAT™, a patient literally can walk into a physician’s office and leave with a diagnosis and course of treatment all within the same visit. Better patient care. MiniCAT™ is a compact CT scanner that captures isotropic spatial resolution images using significantly lower radiation than conventional CT. Being compact in size, the scanner is typically placed where the patient is treated: the doctor’s office. As summed up by Dr. David A. Blaine, Mountain State, “MiniCAT™ is convenient for the patient and the doctor. Any time everyone benefits, you come out ahead.”